


Progression

by zarabithia



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Kala Dandekar/Wolfgang Bogdanow side pairing, mentions of canon child death, mentions of happy pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Will and Riley develop their relationship, their reality surpasses their expectations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Progression

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nellosel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellosel/gifts).



The first time Riley kisses Will, they're thousands of miles apart. The kiss is "only in their minds," one might say. Part of Riley wonders, later - much later, after Will is no longer sharing her mind space - how much of the kiss is real and how much is simply what they imagine the kiss might be.

In that kiss, his skin is warm and his breath - tasting like the kind of artificial peppermint that comes from mouthwash - is hot; for the first time since that day in the mountains, she stops freezing. For the first time since that day in the mountains, she remembers what it is like to want something without the want being a source of pain. 

It would so easy to chalk the experience up to something that her mind wants to be true. She's run so long and so hard to escape that day on the mountain, is it so hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, her mind is finally playing tricks on her to help her along in her efforts? 

The second time she kisses Will, he's unconscious. He's unconscious and he's freezing. It's nothing at all like the kiss they shared before. Even the want that she feels isn't the same; it's accompanied this time by the kind of sharp pain that demands guilt as an accompanist. 

But there's no pretending this want is a figment of her imagination. So for the first time since that day on the mountain, Riley chooses to run towards the pain that beckons to her, instead of away from it.

~ 

The first time Riley experiences what Will calls a "real hot dog," Will is only two hours away from Riley, but they are both more than ten hours away by plane away from the home of Will's birth. 

But while they wait on Nomi and Amanita to work their technical magic, Will's memory takes them on a journey back to a place that Riley's never really heard Will speak very kindly of. 

"I guess I don't have as many happy thoughts about Chicago as you do about Iceland," he acknowledges as they stand outside in a rain that feels as wet as any storm that Riley has ever stood under and look in on a restaurant even more crowded than the sidewalk that they are standing on. As people bustle past them, the overwhelming ... noise ... of the city amazes Riley. She has stood in clubs less frenzied than this street corner; it is the very last place she would have guessed a man as calm, steady, and reliable as Will to come from. 

"Most of the memories I've shared with you about Iceland have not been happy ones," she counters. 

"You've shown me your home," he counters. "Your dad. Your house. Your music. The place you go, when you can't go anywhere else. That tells me everything I need to know about how you feel about Iceland." 

"It's not how you feel about Chicago?" 

"It's how I feel about this place," he says and he nods towards the little restaurant in front of them. The one that seems so keen on putting every vegetable on the planet on top of a hot dog... these are not the kind of hog dogs that Riley has experienced in her DJ travels. 

It seems ridiculous that a hot dog can have such strong memories, honestly. But he's never questioned her memories, or the power they continue to hold, so she returns the favor. 

And when he speaks, she's glad she doesn't. "This was my mom's favorite restaurant in all of Chicago. She'd get her char-dog, and I'd get my regular red hot. It's ... I don't remember a lot about her. But I remember that." 

He takes her hand in his, and he doesn't let go, no matter how many people bump into them. 

The second time they visit that little restaurant, Riley picks up on smells that hadn't been there in Will's memories. She smells near-by pizza places, the distinctive smell of tamales sharing billing with the hot dogs of Will's memories, and the medley of vegetables that they'd stood on that sidewalk and watched being piled high on top of the restaurant's treasured main item. 

She takes his hand again, warm even in the bitter cold snap that has overcome Chicago in the middle of April. "So tell me," she says casually, "Where's a girl supposed to get some ketchup around here?" 

"You don't put ketchup on hot dogs!" he exclaims, and his face is still twisted into indignant horror when she leans up to kiss him. 

~ 

"That isn't a pancake," Will says stubbornly the first time that he is introduced to pönnukökur. 

"No, it's pönnukökur," Riley corrects, "But you are having trouble pronouncing that." 

"How very stereotypically white male of you," Nomi chides, in the gentle way that she does that still makes one feel guilty. 

Kala laughs around a forkful of sweetened Rhubarb jam that she has taken to eating out of the jar. Wolfgang sits beside her, and he laughs too, whether because of Will's discomfort or Kala's happiness, is up for guessing. Either way, his hand sits protectively on a stomach that is larger than it used to be, a mere four months ago, and Riley instinctively offers another jar of Rhubarb jam to Kala. 

It had been Riley's favorite, too, once. 

She hasn't been able to eat it in years. 

"It does look a bit more like a crepe. Hernando is very fond of them," Lito informs them. "We had custard-filled crepes in Paris once." 

It's then that their cluster is swept away to Paris, and the conversation about pönnukökur comes to an end. 

The first time that Will is introduced to pönnukökur in person, it has been four weeks since Riley saw him in person, and they barely take time to leave the bed to eat. The Rhubarb jam that Kala loved so much is shared only between them and Riley finds that her craving for it has returned now that she is tasting it on Will's lips. 

~ 

The first time Riley sees Will standing over a crib, it's one that has always haunted her dreams, because it never got any use. 

It's easy to get lost in the past when she sees him there. IT's easy to wallow in what used to be, instead of what might be ... what could be. It's easy to remember the large family and the babies she wanted to have with someone else. 

She can't move. She can't go forward or backwards. She' stuck there, in a shared memory, watching Will stand over an unused crib. 

"I'm sorry I didn't get to meet her," Will says, and the break in the silence is enough drive her forward. Her arms go around him and her face buries into his chest, and the only way she can imagine dealing with her past is with the presence of the man standing beside her.

The next time Riley watches him standing over a crib, two beautiful dark eyes look up at them with their mother's calm. He has his hand in hers, but she has told him that she is okay three times now, and he is choosing to believe her this time. Or so he says. 

"Such a peaceful, pretty baby. Can't tell Wolfgang had anything to do with you," Will teases, and his voice is the soft kind you're supposed to use with a baby, Riley thinks. The kind you use when your baby is okay, when your family is protected and loved; it's the kind you use when you are sure things are okay.

And standing there next to Will, Riley thinks of the future that might be, and for the first time since that day on the mountain, Riley thinks things just might be.


End file.
